Novel anomalous Hall effect mechanism in ferrimagnetic GdCo alloy

Abstract

In this work, we shed light on the mechanism behind the complexity of the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in the rare earth-transition metal (RE-TM) compound. To achieve a comprehensive picture, we first theoretically investigate the pure elemental metals and observe that the AHE of RE Gd is negative while that of TM Co is positive. We then investigate magnetic properties and AHE behavior for two typical cases of TM-rich and RE-rich compositions that correspond to GdCo5 and GdCo3 alloys, respectively. The observation that net magnetization is not a decisive factor in assessing the AHE value is consistent with recent claims. Besides, our investigations reveal a significant role of the Gd sublattice to the AHE. The reduction AHE signal under a high-applied field is attributed to the counteraction between the positive and negative AHC contributions when the TM and RE sub-moments are aligned parallel. On a bright note, our new findings can be successfully employed to unravel two types of aberrant humps of AHE signals near compensation temperature.